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I received some heirloom tomato seed and am getting ready to start them. I have an Aerogarden and was thinking about using iy initially and later transferring to soil pots.
Has anyone made their own plant food for this type of application? I've read some pros and cons. I was a bit taken back by the cost of Aerogarden branded plant food.

Sorry I can't help with your question but thanks for the reminder! Time to get those seeds started.

I am unfamiliar with aerogarden, but used to have an aquarium stuffed full of plants that required attention to fertilizer and micronutrients. You might browse online aquarium plant resources for rational replacement plant food.

It's not magic, it's just chemistry. And if it is already liquid then you are buying a lot of water.

At my work place we plant most stuff in commercial light peat mixes (i.e. non-nutritive substrate). We mainly use Jack's 20-10-20 Peat-Lite water soluble fertilizer in our fertilizer injector system, but adjust with KNO3, CaNO3, chelated iron, MgSO4 as needed. No idea what this costs compared to whatever Aerogarden sells. We get a price break at 40 25lb bags of the Jack's, so we usually buy that much at a time.

LifeIsGood wrote: ↑Tue Jan 24, 2023 5:18 am I received some heirloom tomato seed and am getting ready to start them. I have an Aerogarden and was thinking about using iy initially and later transferring to soil pots.
Has anyone made their own plant food for this type of application? I've read some pros and cons. I was a bit taken back by the cost of Aerogarden branded plant food.

I use Espoma Liquid fertilizer once the true leaves emerge:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JI ... UTF8&psc=1

I use Jack's a month after up and once put in the ground:
https://www.amazon.com/JR-Peters-51324- ... RH0M&psc=1

The biggest thing is don't start them too early, unless you live in like zone 8-10 and can plant them in the next 60-ish days. I started mine March 20th and this is what they looked like May 15th. We are in Colorado and didn't put them in the ground until early June for reference. They were ready to go in the ground 60 days after starting them.

https://ibb.co/Ptxwn4V

Hardening off is very important, lots of great Youtube videos!